MISCELLANY 96
The Rolling English Road
By
G. K. Chesterton
Before
the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The
rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
A
reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,
And
after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;
A
merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread
The
night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.
I
knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,
And
for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire;
But
I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed
To
straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,
Where
you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,
The
night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.
His
sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run
Behind
him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun?
The
wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which,
But
the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch.
God
pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear
The
night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.
My
friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage,
Or
stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,
But
walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth,
And
see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death;
For
there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,
Before
we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.
Chesterton
wrote this poem in support of the Temperance movement (which discouraged the consumption
of alcohol), but he misjudged our ancestors, for the zig-zag layout of rural
roads was the result of an adherence to ancient field boundaries, not the inebriated
state of the people who laid them out.
We have always respected property ownership, unlike more recent
visitors, such as the Romans, with their straight lines, and we still do, if
you look at the huge loop of the Otmoor Avoidance (to preserve Alice’s Meadow) between
junctions 8 and 9 of the M40 motorway.
